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When is the Right Time to Start Investing? Ft. Special Guest Shakhzoda

from TheMcEnultyMethod: How to Live a Smarter Financial Life

58m 17s

When is the Right Time to Start Investing? Ft. Special Guest Shakhzoda

The discussion centers on smart financial decision-making for young professionals, especially graduates entering law school or the workforce. Key insights emphasize that debt is not inherently bad—it's valuable when tied to assets or careers with strong return on investment, like law or real estate. Bad debt arises from unproductive spending or degrees with no market demand. The financial advice prioritizes early action: first, maximize employer-matched 401k contributions, then fund Roth accounts for future tax-free growth. After securing financial stability, aggressive debt reduction is recommended. A core principle is resisting lifestyle inflation—new graduates must avoid spending habits that match rising income, especially in expensive regions. Strategies like relocating or joining the military offer alternative paths to debt relief. Salary negotiations are effective when backed by market research and realistic benchmarks. Long-term wealth is built not through active stock picking, but through consistent, passive investment in diversified funds, leveraging the power of compound growth over time. The central message is: focus on disciplined saving, smart debt management, and early financial planning—because time value of money means even modest monthly investments can grow into substantial wealth over decades. The recurring theme is that financial freedom begins with mindset and action, not just income.

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Crown coins casino winning never sounded so good. What would you do if you want big at Crown coins casino real people win real prizes every single day? Hi, this is Chelsea from Dallas. I just hit the jackpot. 1 over 1,500 K visit crowncoins.com Sign up in seconds, intercode crown and get a free lucky wheel bonus. You may win up to 10,000 sweeps coins crowncoins.com That's C-R-O-W and coins.com. No purchase needed. Code ballot for new users on board were prohibited by law 18 plus terms and conditions apply. Crown coins casino. Welcome to another edition of the mech-in-alty method where we're joined as always by financial expert Frank mech-in-alty. Frank, how you doing? Great colon. How are you? Good. And we got a special guest tonight. How you doing? Good. How are you? Good. And I'm just going to hand it off to you and let you ask any questions you want. Frank, do you hear a thing? OK. I want to talk to you about something I've been kind of thinking for a while specifically debt, especially coming out as someone who's going to be leaving their undergrad and going to a whole graduate school. I've been told by family members that, you know, there's such thing as good debt because, you know, there are an investment in our future. But I feel like given today's economic climate, cost of living, at what point does the ROI or the return on investment flip? Like, is there such a thing or a concept as good debt? Well, yes, there's definitely such a thing as a good debt. So the easiest example is a mortgage debt. You're buying a house. The house, for the most part, almost any voice you buy a house is going to go up and value. So having debt on something that's going to go up and value is a good thing. Bad debt is buying a boat and getting a loan on it. It's like the worst bad debt. Credit card debt, where you're racking up credit card bills for buying cups of coffee at 10 bucks a piece every day. And you don't have the money to pay the bill off at the end of the month. Horrible debt. Just, you know, it's debt is good if it's creating more value. So I know you're worried about, you know, picking up debt to go to grad school to become a lawyer. All right, because we've talked and you said you, you know, you want to, you want to go to law school. You're very fascinated by it. That's great. So think about it as this. If you take out debt to go to law school, are you going to be able to earn more money after that? That depends where I go in. Hopefully, yes. Well, knowing you, you're very driven. Thank you, you're going to end up in a better place. It's, it's going to be a worthwhile investment. Where people get in trouble with school debt is, and we won't name names. But you know, you go to a private college that costs $80,000, $90,000 a year all in. And you go there and you get a degree in something that really has no job prospects. So you end up walking out of college with a quarter million dollars of debt. And you'll be lucky if you make $50,000 a year. That's a bad, bad deal. Versus you go to, you go to law school, and I don't know what, I don't know what law school costs. But let's assume it's a hundred grand a year. That's, yeah, it's a private, it's a private school. Yeah, okay, so a hundred grand a year, so, and you go to law school for three, three years, okay. So you get some scholarships in that along the way, but so you end up with owning $150,000 when you get out. Sounds like an insurmountable amount of money. But once again, art, while you're in law school, you're trying really, really hard to be at the top of your class to get the good jobs to be at the, you know, you're not, you're not taking out loans just so you can goof off and not have to go to work. So that's, that's the other difference. And $150,000 is a lot of debt. But I know that, you know, if you get with the right firm, you get the right job going out of law school, you're making six figures. And you can live fairly poor for a while and you can pay that down. So and it's setting you up for the rest of your life. It's an investment in the next 50 years, 40 years, 50 years. It's not, well, yes, I racked up $150,000 and I got a degree in pottery. I thought we weren't naming names. I did, I said pottery, I didn't, I didn't, you know, I don't think there's a degree in pottery. Well, that fine arts are, I don't know what pottery is under, but we've gone from one degree to a whole whole college. Well, you know, yes, it is a slippery slope because if I've lent, I used to have a California lender's license for one of our companies. And if I made loans, the way the government makes loans to people to go to college, I would have gone to jail for predatory lending and predatory lending means that you make loans to people that you know they can't pay back. So making a loan to somebody going to law school, dental school, medical school, getting there's, you know, accounting degree, their finance degree, an engineering degree, you know, there's lots of them where they have good job prospects and they can pay the debt back. Those are good loans. That's good debt, but yes, getting a bunch of debts is so you can go have the college experience and taking some, getting a degree in something that is going to be absolutely worthless in the workforce, that's bad debt. I want to expand on what you said earlier about, you know, students rocking up those hundreds of thousands, right? I feel like when a student debt reaches like in those numbers that you mentioned, a lot of students experience this, I didn't know how to name it, but I would frame it as depth apathy where like the number gets just so high that it stops feeling real. And we just ignore it. And how do you think young adults can stay psychologically grounded and motivated when facing those types of mountains of debt? Is it kind of that feeling like, oh, I'll eventually vaid off or? Well, if they have that attitude to start with, there's not much you could do to them. Yeah. Well, you know, it can be really ugly. Right. Yeah, worry about it later. I'll take care of it later. I'll just declare bankruptcy. I'll do this. I'll do that. But that really does ruin your life for a long time. You know, if you have a bad credit score, a lot of times you can't get a job now because employers are checking people's credit score when they apply and say, well, you know, you've got a credit score of 450 here. There's probably a problem with your, with how you run your life. And they're like, well, that has nothing to do with how good I'll do the job, but it does. And I feel like to expand on that, I feel like it kind of holds people back from, you know, starting a business or holding out for a better job. So how do you think you students, at least, are young professionals that just graduated? You know, balance managing your debt without letting it completely dictate like your career choices. Well, you know, you don't have to, well, and I don't know how law school works. I've never been law school. I've never had that much attention. You're fine. But I assume if you don't finish law school in three years, that's okay. Yeah. So if you can get a job and cut down on that debt to help yourself not have that huge monster sing over hanging you, there's nothing wrong with that. I was going to say the difference to when you talk like good debt, bad debt, you take on these loans. A lot of people don't understand like there's loans that build interest while you're in school. You don't, if you can have the ones that don't build interest and then pay those off to some extent while you're in school, that also helps. Just because the money's there doesn't mean you should take it, right? And that's the problem. But they've made it so easy. We never had this huge student debt problem until the federal government took over the student debt program. And they said, hey, everybody gets as much as they want because it doesn't make sense. But once again, are you, we go back to, are you buying, are you buying, are you borrowing to buy a house, get a better career, are you borrowing to get a boat? To have fun, you know, that that'll never work out, right? Because there's no return. Well, one of the most common debates among students is, you know, what to do with their first professional paycheck. Do you recommend the throwing, you know, every single spare dollar at that said debt? for like an aggressive payoff or paying the minimums on loan so like so we can start investing early and capturing that compound interest. Well, this is where my favorite saying comes in. It depends. Shucksoda has been in my class as before. She knows that's my favorite by it because it does depend. If you have an employer with a 401k and they're going to match, the first thing you do is you put money in that 401k to get the match. What does match? That's it's free money the employer gives you so let me explain how this works and I will use round numbers because I don't want to think too hard. Okay. So let's say you get a job and you're getting paid $100,000 a year. Now I had a student yesterday tell me that where they worked they get a 6% match in their 401k. So that means where they work I want to go there. Yeah, that's really good. The best I've heard is 8% I'm sure there's some higher than that but so that means if they put $6,000 from their from their pay they put 6,000 6% of the 100,000 into the 401k their employer puts $6,000 into their 401k. So they immediately make 100% on their money. Okay. It's free money. That's so cool. It really is cool. I've never had a 401k in my life but it would have been good if I had. So yes, but that's what's happened. I've never had a pension here either but when the businesses got rid of pensions it was because they had this 401k thing that they could put money into and make it the employees problem now for their retirement. So so I would say number one if you have an employer match you put it into the employer match. Number two if you don't you fund you fund a Roth. Number three you got to start paying down that debt. Is there I mean is it are you really getting 100% of your money back on the 401k because doesn't it get taxed as soon as it comes out? Well that count. Okay. So but here's the deal. It gets taxed when you take it out 50 years from now as income. Okay. Okay. But it gets you get to grow tax-free. Winning never sounded so good. What would you do if you want big? At Crown Coins Casino real people win real prizes every single day. Hi this is Chelsea from Dallas. One over 1,500k. Visit CrownCoins.com. Sign up in seconds. Intercode Crown and get a free lucky wheel bonus. You may win up to 10,000 sweeps coins. CrownCoins.com that's c-r-o-w-n coins.com. No purchase needed. Code ballot for new users on void were prohibited by law. 18 plus terms and conditions apply. Crown Coins Casino. So let's let's do my favorite example. Remember our rule of 72? Yeah. Okay. So I can show you a Vanguard fund and probably a bunch of other funds for the last 25 years they've averaged and I'm going to use 12%. Okay. Let's use 7. Let's use 8. 10. 10. 10's 10's still reasonable for the start market. Okay. Let's use 10 which means that your money is going to double every seven years. Yeah. Okay. So and once again we'll use even numbers because it's easier. You get you get 10,000 dollars into your 401k. Okay. We have extra papers. Okay. You have 10,000 let's just say you get 10,000 dollars into your 401k. Okay. And you're 22. 21. 21. It's just a 20. Make it easy to sell. No, no, no. No, I'm going with the theory here. Okay. My theory is you all are going to work to your 70 because you're going to live to be 100. Yes. Okay. Right. So I'm a law school. We plan to retire early. Yeah. 49 years. 49 is divided evenly by seven. So I'll see. I got a logic here. Okay. So so our money doubles every seven years. Okay. Okay. So we're going to go from 10 to 20. Okay. 20 to 40. 40 to 80. 80 to 160. 160 to 320. 320 to 640. 640 to 1280. 1,280,000 dollars. Wow. Yes. By doing nothing except getting the only job you have is as safe as much as you can as early as you can. So you get that doubling. Just look at that last double. 640 to 1,2 to 1,820. Yeah. 1,280,000. That's that's the one that counts. Wow. So so yes. And the reason that works so well is because it's in a tax deferred account. You don't pay any tax on any gains that are in that account. It just keeps growing and growing and growing. And so yeah. When you get to be 70 and you you start to take the money out. Okay. You're going to pay some tax. It's income you pay tax. Now there is such as thing as a Roth 401k. A lot of companies don't offer those but because they're I don't know why they just don't but either way you want to get as much you want to get that money into your deferred account because so let's we put 10,000 in one year. We put 10,000 in the next year. Okay. So when you're 71 now you got $2,560,000. Do that do that four times. $10,000 in the account four times. Yeah. And you'll have 10 million. No, you'll have $5,000,000. Yeah, yeah. $5,000,000. Okay. So yes. And yes, will you eventually have to pay tax? Yes. Okay. But that's you say you've got this massive nest egg now. Mm-hmm. You okay. I think yesterday in class you said that Roth 401k's are the same as 401k's. I might be getting this wrong. No, Roth 401k's. So here's the difference. With a 401k you deduct the money you put into the 401k from your income so you don't pay tax on it now. With a Roth 401k you pay tax on your income and goes into the 401k. But you don't pay tax in the future when you take it out. Can you repeat the first one again? Sure. 401k. With a 401k. Yeah. So let's you make $100,000 you put $10,000 into the 401k. Okay. You're only paying tax on the $90,000. Oh. $100,000. With a Roth 401k you pay tax on the $100,000. You still put $10,000 in the either 401k. Yeah. But in the future you don't have to pay tax on the Roth money when it comes out. Yeah. So for your generation that is the better deal. Yeah. It really is. You pay a little more in tax now but in the future you tremendously better off the Roth. I don't know how long it's been around now. The Roth like the normal Roth IRA. Yeah. A while. It's been a while. They didn't have those when I another thing you missed out on. But you know, don't feel too bad for me because quite honestly the reason I don't have a Roth IRA is because my income was high enough that I couldn't have a Roth IRA. I wasn't even mentee in cryptocurrency. No. But so you do want to think about yes if you can get it in a Roth that's better. Now see here's and that's just thought that's not just occurred to me. I wonder if the reason companies don't do Roth IRAs very often is because maybe they don't get to deduct the contributions from their income when they make the match. Yeah. I don't know. That just occurred to me. I don't say because I never heard of a Roth 401k to be honest. I only know the normal. Right. I didn't even know it existed until yesterday. So yeah. So that's we'll have to look that up call at another time to figure out how that works. I wanted to go back to what we were talking about earlier kind of what the debt thing. But it's about kind of like traditional financial advice always tells us you know throw everything into this debt and then live on like pretty much live poor for like a couple years, right? But I feel like my take on this is that recent graduates especially living in expensive areas like Southern California don't you think we need a little bit of a different debt payoff strategy because think about it. If a young professional has a you know lots of debt you just recommend that they actively maybe relocate for a temporary time. to a lower-cost state like Tennessee Nashville or their first few years of working like even if it means you know leaving their network behind just to like aggressively tackle their debt. I think it's an absolutely fabulous idea. I tell students that all the time go somewhere else California is so hard to get you're yeah it's so expensive. Hard thing is getting the first job somewhere else yeah well if you're in school in Southern California if you end up in law school somewhere else somewhere else right then you then you've built a network there as well right and so Cal you can always come back to California move back to California twice especially if you live somewhere else where you're able to pay down your debt save money yeah built it's it's easier because you know the student debt if you go to buy a house buy a condo buy a place to live well they're gonna say well how much debt do you have other than than this right so that's gonna hurt you I mean I don't believe in this well I'm gonna I'm not gonna spend any money I'm not gonna do anything I'm gonna I'm just gonna pay down my debts and save every dime and live like a monk oh yeah you sure you said yesterday you gotta just live a little poor for a bit I said a little poor you know I do a guy who did that just saved everything forever yeah a lot of money spent don't by the time he was ready to retire and actually spend some of the money he was just in the hospital you know you gotta do yeah there's people I'm gonna retire at 35 and they never spend a dime and they do okay you gotta have some fun but here's the fun you don't go out to eat every day you know you take you you can take it you can you can take a lunch you can take a lunch to work put away those you can drink the coffee at work you don't have to you know because it adds up you know look what's it cost what's it cost it shoot Charles juniors like 20 bucks now to go to watch oh wow that's a hundred bucks a week that's five thousand that's five thousand dollars a year so and people it's just 20 bucks when you put it like that you do it every day it's so you're you know I don't know what's your copy cost because I don't go in those places eight eight bucks okay so that's that every day okay twice a week okay you're in mind that's okay yeah see I'm willing to get people without any grief at all once a week because then it's special okay because if it's every day it's not special what what good is it it I have no idea where we're going here you gotta get me back on track oh oh oh it bucks a day he's gonna call the cows yeah like the I was gonna say do do like residents of high cost living areas do you do you need a completely different strategy let's say we don't want to move to Tennessee or I don't know where it is like well then you probably have to keep roommates for a longer period of time yeah you know I'm sure you're already tired of them but but yeah there's there's there's always a way to do something yeah you're right always away you know okay so let's let's take the live in your car let's let's take the let's take the wild rain okay you want to be trying to attorney right well military has attorneys okay you want it you want to get law school paid for yes you join the military you become you become a jaguar okay and I don't know what the requirement is in this setting the other thing for you to you know what you got to get back but it's not the end of the world because here's here's the thing about an military career 20 years you retire and as a jaguar you'd retire probably as at least a major yeah look not a colonel after 20 years which means you got a really good retirement yeah and then you go out and be just be a regular lawyer for another 20 years and you never had that debt it's there's there's the this country gives people the opportunities to do things in a wide variety of ways if you really don't want that you can do it without that okay it's it's a trade-off no yeah you have a good point I that actually leaves me to my second my fifth point winning never sounded so good what would you do if you want big at Crown Coins Casino real people win real prizes every single day hi this is Michael from Dallas and I won 40k and finally renovated my home visit crowncoins.com sign up in seconds enter code crown and get a free lucky wheel bonus you may win up to 10,000 sweeps coins crowncoins.com that's c-r-o-w-n coins.com no purchase needed code value for new users on the way we're headed by law 18 plus terms and conditions plaster nobody's counting well I am but okay let's say going from you know broke college student to you know earning like this real salary you're actually seeing numbers I feel like it's a huge transition and what do you think are some of the most effective practical guardrails like young people can do to prevent I don't know how to name this I call it lifestyle inflation where you know how last yesterday you were telling us in class like even if you're making a lot pretend like you're not well how do you prevent let's say having that inflation where you know your your lifestyle matches your income everybody's got a friend that always wants to go out yes they've always got to be doing stuff they always it that's you you go out with them now and then it's not every night you don't become you don't become their part of their posse because they're just spending every dime they have and who knows how much money their parents have and does that the other thing or it the next the next biggest one is cars yeah I wanted to buy I was thinking of myself earlier today I was like when I'm done with lost going to buy really fast car and there you go and you need a really fast car who are you trying to impress myself well you can get a really fast car it can be really crappy looking but no that's that's what I'm saying it's that's that's how people get in trouble all this you know look what's the average price of a new car now 50 thousand sixty thousand dollars 80 well in your world it's 80 minutes 56 okay so okay so think about it 80,000 now I don't like leasing cars because actually throwing money away in my mind every three years every two or three years ago to do the same thing yeah you're on the treadmill but to buy an 80,000 dollar car even with let's say an eight-year loan which is a long time although cars last a very long time that means you have to pay off ten thousand dollars of principal year it's almost a thousand dollars a month just to pay the principal on the loan yeah add the interest on there now you're now you're looking at a twelve hundred dollar car payment yeah so that's that's I think that's probably one of the greatest traps people find themselves in getting fast cars getting expensive cars darn yeah new expensive cars I mean who are you trying to impress literally no one I just want to get a fast car I we see them on the road and I'm like that's gonna be me in a couple years okay well you're in Southern California yeah you can't go fast anywhere oh yeah sure true you're right you can highly illegal they're starting to put speed cameras up everywhere I heard yeah but now no no one looking in the corner growing up no no one my friends and I know one were greater speed or street racers than we were it was but the traffic wasn't as bad yeah yeah so I understand fast cars are fun yeah they really are but yeah you know we we always seem to end up talking about my car yes I need a new car I should have a new car I can't fit in my car really but every time I think about it's paid for it doesn't cost me anything to drive why do I want to spend seven or eight hundred bucks a month on a car payment or I just buy it for cash but I don't want to get rid of the money it's because I don't have to impress anybody now if I was selling high-end real estate yeah then okay yeah I probably we do. pull up in a better car than a 15-year-old Prius for the bull hole in it. Oh, that's a good story. Oh, they're in that. It's a nice breakfast. Yeah. But yeah, so, but you're absolutely right. That's what happens. All of a sudden, you get that first paycheck. Look at all this money I got. I can't spend as much money. Yeah. Well, I ask anybody in the NFL, the NBA hockey team hockey team, you know, how much money they can spend. Why they all why not all and they're doing better. They're doing better managing those people and making sure they don't waste their money like they have in the past because it's embarrassing to the leagues. But you can spend any amount. I can spend 5,000 a month, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. It's easy. I want to shift over to kind of negotiating job offers. Do you think there's any chance of an undergrad? Let's say we just got out of college two, three internships under their belt. Have the power or like the leg up when it comes to negotiating like salaries or any type of negotiation. Honestly, any power. Do we have any power in terms of that? You have maybe a little. Right. Is there what exploit it? Well, you have to come back with facts. So I had somebody sitting in that chair not too long ago that her internship offered her full-time job and she felt the the offer was too low. I said, well, let me know. First, tell me about the job. She told me about the job and then she said, tell me what they offered. She told me, yes, it's too low. And I said, but that's just my initial reaction. But here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to get hold of a friend of mine who owns the same type of firm that you're that you're going to work for. And I will ask him, I'm going to send him your resume, I'm going to say, what would you pay this person to come to work for you? And I know that the friend of mine, he's not cheap, but he's tight. He's not going to just, he doesn't throw so many of people. And he comes back and he says, well, I would pay this, this person with this experience and this, this, this. I would pay them from this range between this and this, which was about $10,000 more than the bottom was $10,000 more than she was being offered by this other people. So I said, well, you need to go back and say, I'm not, I'm not a big fan of, you know, and there were other things they weren't giving your health insurance. It's crazy stuff. Yeah. And so she went back and the person was great. They wrote like a five page explanation of why they couldn't pay more. But they did, they did raise it like two or three thousand dollars and they raised the health insurance to partial payment. Right. So, okay, that's good. So my advice to this person was, you're not graduating for a few months. Yeah. Take the job because you don't have a job. You're not going to start full time with them until school's out. And then keep looking because you need a full time job. Yeah. But now you've got this in your pocket. And so it actually frees you up to look more, to take more chance in that. And I literally got an email from her today saying, I got a job. So good. So yes, but, you know, that's that example. So I'll give you another example. I had a student that, a friend of mine was looking for somebody to hire. And I thought, highly of this person, the student. And I said, oh, I've got somebody going to give you a job. I said, this is the president of this division. Right. All you have to do is go in, not screw up the interview and you have the job. Yes. Well, about eight o'clock that night, my friend calls me and he goes, screw it up, did you have it? What is wrong with your people? I would cry if someone said that about me. I go, I go, why? She came in here when I asked her what she was looking for. She asked her $85,000 a year when, quite honestly, it was a $65,000 a year job. He goes, why? What? What? I said, let me call you back. I hung up. I called this person. I said, what is wrong with you? It was what do you mean? I said, you asked her $85,000 a year? She goes, well, I looked it up on the internet and the range was 60 or 60 to 85. So I figured I'd start at the top. I said, well, I said, let's talk about that. Oh, my God. You didn't go to Harvard. You just job is not in New York City. You have to be more realistic. When you look up ranges for a job, it's not nationwide. It's in crown coins casino. At Crown Coins Casino, real people win real prizes every single day. 1 over 1,500 K. Sign up in seconds, intercode crown and get a free lucky wheel bonus. Crowncoins.com. That's c-r-o-w-n-coins.com. No purchase needed. Code valve for new users on board were prohibited by law. 18 plus terms and addition supply. Crowncoins Casino. Southern California. It's not even L.A. It's Orange County, because they are all different pay scales. So I said, if you're willing to be more realistic, I can salvage this. And she was. And she did get hired. She lost her there a couple for years. She got greedy again and decided she had to have far more money than they're willing to pay. And she left. Which is fine. I hope she's doing very well. But yes, you do have employers are always going to offer as little as possible. So, but have some facts. Well, you know, I know for a fact that, you know, this job and other companies pays this of similar size. We all have our magic boxes now. You can look up anything. You can find anything. You obviously can't just blindly take it. I'm going to ask for 85, because that's what it says. But, you know, a lot of times employers think they're not going to complain if you don't come back and ask for more. But if you ask, they have, if they offer you 65 and he asks for 70, and you settle at 67, 67 and a half, that's fine. But if they offer you 65 and you come back, you ask for 80, you're done. Well, you're talking about like how, you know, you have to look in your area, how much is it's making. I feel like that's easy, but I think determining your, how much your skills are worth is a bit harder. Like, let's say I'm applying for a position where my Excel skills are through the roof. But I don't know if that's, how would I compare that to, does that my question make sense? You have to be able to, you have to be able to prove to the potential employer that your Excel skills are through the roof. Where you say, look, compared to, compared to my fellow students, I've done this much more in Excel, I've got this many more certificates. I am really good. If you'd like to give me a test, I'm willing to take it to prove to you how good I am. I'm going to prove that you should pay me more. Because that is valuable, because now they don't have to train you as much. It won't come off as too pushy. No, no, you're stating a fact. You know, there's, there's ways to say it. I don't say that since come down to the person, how they say it. Yeah. Yeah. What they say. I'm the best there is and no one you got working here is better than me. I mean, that's too far, too far. Yeah, that's way too far. Okay. That's what you do for five years. I was trying to think of like hypotheticals to ask you, but let's say you are in charge of designing like a mandatory, one summer, I know you already teach like five classes, but like one semester, finance 101, right? Class for like every college in the country. What is the single most important concept that you think would be on the syllabus? That would be tested on time value of money. Yeah, we do. Yeah, we do. Just the $10,000 becomes one million, $280,000 in 49 years. Don't you think like, and a lot of building your own portfolio is more important? I thought you would say that. I don't know why. No, because and here's why. Unless Unless you have a job as a stock analyst, and you know how to do that, don't do it. But I feel like anyone can build a portfolio. Anyone can. You just got to invest in what? 30 stocks there. You got a notice by portfolio. That's right. Well, yeah. We have those in class yesterday. You're right. But then what about performance? But what's 30? I mean, you could take the Dow 30, which is a pretty good spread, which is what that's intended to do. So yeah, you could just invest in that. Or you can invest in, you know, some of the other funds I showed you, which the one had. I don't know. Well, my favorite is Vanguard. Yeah, Vanguard large cap, growth fund. It's University Institute, whatever. It's got a hundred. Yeah. 112 or I don't know how many stocks, but or the S&P 500. It's got 503 stocks in it. Unless like we like we like I mentioned, the people in big say they spend about the beach investment group, or those who don't know what we're talking about. It's a student run investment fund here on campus. They spend about 40 hours analyzing a stock. Okay. So 40 times 30 is 1200 hours. Okay. So you're going to spend 12 hundred dollars analyzing 30 stocks. So you can build your own portfolio. No. So. So what you're going to do, you're going to, you're going to be rich by being bored. You're going to be rich, become rich by being boring. Okay. Okay, you're going to take 90% of your money that you're going to invest. You're going to put everything you have in the 401k with a Roth IRA or whatever those. Yes. You're going to put it in these funds. Okay. One or two funds. Maybe the S&P 500 and then maybe a European or you know a world outside the US stock fund just to have some diversification. And then if you want to play with stocks, you're going to set up a taxable account and you're going to put 10% of your money in there. And you're going to say, oh, you know what, I read about this company. I'm going to buy some stock in it. Sounds good. Or, you know, that's for the auction. Colin said, Colin said, oh, this is a good stock. And I'm going to go spend 15 minutes learning everything I can about it because that's how you're going to spend. Yeah. Well, you're, you like doing research so you might spend 30 minutes. You say, yeah, you know, this looks pretty good. They can have a good product. They're doing good things. Right. So I'm going to put some money in that one. And so you buy a few little stocks here and there along the way and some will work, some won't because that's what's going to happen. Right. And my goal, my job for everybody that I tell this to now is in 10 years, I want you to look at the return from the boring money versus the return from the money you actively managed. And unless you're extremely lucky and picked a stock like Nvidia when it was really cheap accidentally, you're boring money is going to be worth more. Yeah. I learned that from weirdly enough during your, during our test last semester. I learned so much from that alone because I was like, wow, it's really $10,000 something. I remember one of your questions was like, invest like some thousand amount of money, leave it in there for 10 years with like eight percent interest. Right. It was crazy. I was like, wow, I opened up, I'm going to open up, sorry, like an actual savings account that grows money. Yeah. Because of that. So thank you. You're welcome. But now that everybody, so everybody needs to understand time value money. They need to understand why it's so important to remain semi poor and save as much as they can for the first five years after college. Because I can show you if you save a bunch in the first 10 years after college and never save another dime, you're better off with the 10 years and you are saving for the rest of your life. Because of that, that last double. Yeah. I, okay, I have been scared to touch. Actually, this is a completely different topic, but same arena. But I've been really scared to even touch the stock market only because it looks like this big tsunami in my head. But finally, from at least our investments class, I've started getting more confident because I'm scared I'm going to invest something I lose a ton of money. So like, if I were to, let's say start today investing, is there like a set of rules like that you have to follow, like basic foundational? Well, there's nothing you have to do because this is America. I don't want to lose money. Well, first thing that you result, right? So because you're going to lose money at times. At times in the short run, your investments will go down a value. The market does not go up forever. Oh, yeah. So that's the reason you don't have a stock picker. You don't have to watch that every day. What does happen though? This market goes up, it comes down. But it doesn't go down as much as it went up. Right. But it goes up again, it goes up further, and it comes down. Then it goes up, then it comes down. But it keeps reaching newer highs. Yeah. And so at your age, it doesn't matter. [Music] Winning never sounded so good. What would you do if you won big? Hi, this is Michael from Georgia, I won 40k, and finally renovated my home. Visit crowncoins.com, sign up in seconds, enter code crown, and get a free lucky wheel bonus. Crowncoins.com, that's C-R-O-W-N, coins.com. No purchase needed. [Music] The rule that you, probably the number one rule is that you put money in every month. Okay. Every month, every week, every paycheck. Because sometimes you'll buy, you'll put money into the market when it's going up. Sometimes you'll put money into the market when it's going down. Sometimes you'll put money into the market when it's flat. But you just continually put money in because you can't time the market. So give up on trying to predict? Because that's my scary thing. Like, I will cannot predict the market at hands. I don't even want to touch it. So here's the deal. Say, you're graduating from college and somebody decides it's a wonderful thing. They gave you $100,000. But until you have to put it in the market. Okay. Okay. So what you don't do is go put $100,000 in the market today. Okay. And for one, you're never going to lose it all. Especially if you're in a fund that's spread a bunch of, around a bunch of stocks. Because the only way you're going to lose it all is at the entire economy of the United States, the entire world. Absolutely collapses. And then who cares if you've got money anyways? We're going to. But so. But what you're afraid of is, okay, I put my money in. It's going to go down 20%. Okay. We still got 80. And it's going to go back up again. Because you don't need it now. But so here's what you do. You take that $100,000, you can go, okay, I'm going to put it in. Let's get it. I'll just keep it simple, simple numbers. I'm going to put $10,000 in a month. $10,000 in this month. You can pick a day, pick a day of the month. You know, what's your favorite day? I like odd numbers. So 15th. So the 15th of the month, you're going to put $10,000 more into your fund. Okay. Until you put that whole $100,000 in. And some days, it'll be up. Today was an update. Last Friday was a really, or was it Monday? It was a really bad, down day. I'll look at my bus. I'm just making sure this Monday. Yeah, Monday. Horrible day. Oh, my God. World's coming to an end. But what's it done the last day? It's gone up. So quite honestly, it's irrelevant. But yes, it always goes down quicker than it goes up. Okay. So I'm saying, like, for example, invest 10%. Do you think 10% is like the lucky sweet spot number that you should be investing of your income? Does that question make sense? No, it makes absolute sense. But my answer is yours. It all depends. It all depends. Yes. So our people out there say, if you save 20%. If you always save 20% of your income, you'll be very wealthy when you retire. Well, 20% will work. What if I'm making $10? Yeah, most people can't save 20%. Okay. The other thing you have to be about investing is you have to be realistic. Because you can't get depressed that you're failing. You do what you can. You know, if you can't fund 100% of your. Well, like I said, the number one, you want a fund 100% of whatever they're going to match. Yeah. That's number one. But beyond that, if you can't fund 100% of the Roth every year, then you don't. Because here's the only thing. If you're putting the money into a Roth, an IRA or. one K. That money sort of locked out because there's other things you're going to want to do. You're probably going to want to buy your own place to live eventually. And so you don't want to lock up all your money into something that is going to have to get penalized to take it out to use it. So I guess the number one rule is you got to come up with a plan. What do you think and plans can change but what do you you know if you sit back and say I can't I'm 21. How do I how do I see things by the time I'm 30. What do I want to have happen? Fast car, boat, yacht. Okay. Bo and yacht. Bo and yacht. You got a little boat on the back. You can't take a yacht everywhere. But so you know people say well I'm never going to buy a house. Well you know most people don't buy houses until they're in their 30s. Yeah. They may get a condo in their late 20s. Then get a bigger condo in their early 30s. And then trade that into a house when they're in their mid 30s. Yeah. That's pretty normal. Somebody coming right out of the college never really just bought a house. And people forget that while I'm never buy a house. Yes you will. But you got it. You got to think of what it'll also depend on where you're at. So say so you go to law school say you go to NYU. I think we got a pretty good law school and you go I love New York. I don't want to ever leave. Yeah. Okay so well then yeah I got on the house unless you want to take a train for two hours after Connecticut every day and back. So your likes your lifestyle will dictate some of what you're going to do. And there's no reason to even have a car in New York City because of the police market. But I'm just saying. Yeah. You can rent it. You can rent a really expensive car on the weekends and take road trips up to the adder on docs and stuff like that. You're you're talking about houses. Okay I remember I was scrolling on TikTok and I found a video of this guy making some parody where he was like there was his dad and then it was a 16 year old son and the dad unfortunately. Oh no yeah the dad signed off something where the house now belongs to that 16 year old right or like is under his name and that 16 year old got I mean sorry yeah that 16 year old got taxed for that house even though the house has already been paid off and everything. Yeah so there's property taxes on. Right but there he said that there was a way to override them where you don't have to pay. Is it like if you make that person the co signer? No they could think they could be a co owner of the house. Do you get taxed if you fully paid off? No you're joint tenants you become joint tenants on the house. Okay. There's there can be gift taxes because you're giving them half the value of the house. Yeah. There's there's all sorts of weird stuff with that. Yeah that that that I just popped up in my head I've been thinking about that all eight. Anybody going to give you a house? No. Okay so we won't worry about that. No I just like came up and I was like actually this came a little quick while I have the time and then one more question just okay we're talking about income earlier. Right. I also was scrolling on TikTok and I saw something else where this guy said that when you are freshly off as a new you know so a new graduate your income split like the way you should be utilizing it is 10 30 60 where 10% goes to savings 30% goes to investments and 60% goes to like everything else that you need is that good or would you change those numbers? That would be fabulous but 40% of your money you're you're investing basically? 30% Well plus the 10 that you're putting in savings. Yeah. Oh yeah that's yeah. Are you making are you making enough to do that? I don't know he said to do that and I was like that seems like crazy. You know it's like all the it's like what did what they tell you to do and what they do in their own lives? Sure if I was making a million dollars a year sure I could put 10% in savings and 30% investing and live off the 60% yeah why not if I'm in southern California making a 100 grand well I'd be really pleased with myself if I'm putting 10% in investing every year yeah because $100,000 doesn't get you far around here yeah okay let's take like the average I think I read it somewhere the average person who comes out of Long Beach I think they make like 60k in the college of business yeah okay so when getting out how would you have that split? Well once again I know it doesn't if you can put 10% of your day away straight out of your check you'd never see it yeah so you're so you're only living on 54,000 yeah yeah that's 10% of 60,000 yeah yeah I know we both started to wait a minute is that right so so you're living on 54 you get used to living on 54 so that 10% just goes out of your check before you see it yeah and so that's what you think you're making okay that's that's a good way oh okay yeah that's you're right never get the money and say oh I'll invest it now yeah there's always something else there's always that boat you want and that fast in that fast car and your friends want to go eat and set the other thing and there's really cheap vacations in Poito Vierta right now because no one wants to go there so we could we should go to Mexico it's it's easy to spend money but if you're living off so if you're living off 54,000 a year and the 6000 takes care of itself okay you know yeah I was just wondering I see a lot of random financial advice there on social media but I just never I'm like there's all sorts of random financial advice that the one that makes me so mad as people say well it doesn't make sense to buy a house yeah I'm overhearing that I was like what what yeah and I always want to say I wonder how many houses they own yeah because the greatest builder of wealth in this country is people's homes it truly is and it's for a lot of people it's the only way they built wealth because you have to find a place to live anyways and yeah okay so it costs you more to own the house and it would be to rent something but who's getting who's getting the appreciation when you're renting something the person you're renting from you're paying their mortgage down and their property is going up in value so we can do we can do a whole episode on that but yeah but we're we're starting to run out of time but yeah this isn't great it's it's always tremendous when somebody comes in and ask questions it sucks out I really appreciate you you coming and doing if you want to do it again bring friends okay it's it's so much better okay I will thank you so much yeah we're having me all right and thank you to those listening out there and we'll see you next time another edition of the Meccanolty Method winning never sounded so good what would you do if you want big at crown coins casino real people win real prizes every single day hi this is Michael from Dallas and I won 40k and finally renovated my home visit crowncoins.com sign up in seconds enter code crown and get a free lucky wheel bonus you may win up to 10,000 sweeps coins crowncoins.com that's c-r-o-w-n coins.com no purchase needed code valve for new users on void we're prohibited by law 18 plus terms and conditions pledge

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Good debt is defined by creating long-term value, such as mortgage loans or education in high-demand fields like law, while bad debt includes high-interest credit cards or degrees with no job prospects.
  2. Students should evaluate whether their education leads to strong job prospects and high earning potential, as this determines whether debt is a worthwhile investment.
  3. Financial success requires early action
  4. Lifestyle inflation is a major trap—new graduates must resist spending habits that match rising income, especially in high-cost areas like Southern California.
  5. Debt repayment strategies can include relocating to lower-cost areas, joining the military for stable retirement, or actively managing finances with discipline.
  6. Negotiating salaries requires research
  7. Long-term wealth growth is driven by time value of money—consistent, passive investing in diversified funds (like S&P 500) outperforms active stock picking over time.
  8. The most effective financial rule is to invest regularly, regardless of market fluctuations, because compounding and long-term growth outweigh short-term volatility.

Summary:

The discussion centers on smart financial decision-making for young professionals, especially graduates entering law school or the workforce. Key insights emphasize that debt is not inherently bad—it's valuable when tied to assets or careers with strong return on investment, like law or real estate. Bad debt arises from unproductive spending or degrees with no market demand.

The financial advice prioritizes early action: first, maximize employer-matched 401k contributions, then fund Roth accounts for future tax-free growth. After securing financial stability, aggressive debt reduction is recommended. A core principle is resisting lifestyle inflation—new graduates must avoid spending habits that match rising income, especially in expensive regions.

Strategies like relocating or joining the military offer alternative paths to debt relief. Salary negotiations are effective when backed by market research and realistic benchmarks. Long-term wealth is built not through active stock picking, but through consistent, passive investment in diversified funds, leveraging the power of compound growth over time.

The central message is: focus on disciplined saving, smart debt management, and early financial planning—because time value of money means even modest monthly investments can grow into substantial wealth over decades. The recurring theme is that financial freedom begins with mindset and action, not just income.

FAQs

Good debt is used to purchase assets that appreciate in value, like a house or education that leads to a high-paying job. Bad debt is used for things with little or no value, like luxury cars or credit card spending with no return on investment.

It can be worth it if you can secure a high-paying job after graduation, as the debt may lead to significant future income and wealth. However, it's a bad deal if the degree has no job prospects or if the cost outweighs the earnings.

Prioritize saving for retirement (like a 401k or Roth 401k) with employer matching first, then focus on paying down debt. Investing early allows compound growth over time, which can outweigh debt repayment in the long run.

The rule of 72 estimates how long it takes for an investment to double at a given annual return. For example, at 10% return, money doubles every 7 years, showing the power of long-term, tax-deferred growth.

Yes, moving to a lower-cost area can significantly reduce living expenses, allowing more money to be directed toward paying off debt and saving, which improves financial stability and long-term wealth.

Be intentional with spending—avoid high-cost habits like expensive dining or luxury cars. Focus on needs over wants, and track expenses to ensure spending does not grow in lockstep with income.

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